'Local' touch makes lasting memories
Lead Summary
By
Rory Ryan-hcpress@cinci.rr.com
After writing more than 1,000 newspaper columns in the past two decades (including a few of which were almost reasonably coherent), I’m still occasionally surprised by readers’ reactions.
On New Year’s Eve shortly before the ball dropped in Times Square, I offered on Highland County’s most-read website (ours!) one of those boilerplate columns about coffee shops and rumor mills.
Included was some speculation, discussed among a few local business owners and public officials, about Hillsboro’s new safety and service director. As we now know – with all due respect to administration advisers Laura Curliss and Sam Stratman – Richard Giroux has been named by Mayor Drew Hastings to succeed Ralph Holt in the SSD position. We sincerely wish the new administration(wherever they're from!) all the best in 2012 and beyond.
But back to my recent surprise from www.highlandcountypress.com readers.
The New Year’s Eve column referenced a few local restaurants – past and present – that included Blake’s in Greenfield; Magee’s (EAT), the Skyscraper and the Koffee Kup (Wanda’s) in Hillsboro; and the 125 Grill, McCoy’s and the White Star, all in Adams County.
For at least a few readers, the mention of these local establishments brought back some fond memories.
• One reader offered that “The Skyscraper was fine, but I enjoyed a cold beer at the Model Bakery, when I was 5 years old. My dad took me in there and we ordered sandwiches and soft drinks. The guy sitting to my left had a glass of cold beer. Looked pretty good. He sat the glass on the counter to read his paper (the Highland Press, I presume). I picked it up. Down the hatch! Not bad. Dad didn’t even see it. Could I have done that at the Skyscraper?”
No, my friend, unless it was BYOB, you probably couldn’t have had a cold beer at the Skyscraper (located in the 100 block of North High Street in uptown Hillsboro, across from the Colony Theater). Sorry, but I can’t recall the Model Bakery. Where was it located?
• Another reader said: “Thanks for the memories that you brought back talking about the Skyscraper Restaurant. It was the best place to get a roast beef, roast pork or meatloaf hotshot for 60 cents. Sometimes, that was hard to come up with! My dad would take my mom, brother and sister there on a Saturday and then we would visit with the merchants in the stores. I especially remember the Ludwicks and the people in Western Auto. I really needed some good memories to start the new year. Those were great days. Thank you so much.”
You’re most welcome. My dad used to take me to the Skyscraper, too. We always liked Al Staten’s Koffee Kup as well. I consumed my share of bacon & eggs at both places.
And then, there were the after-work spots for a burger and an RC Cola for me (and a burger and beer for the older men I was working with back in the early 1970s).
Forgive me if I miss some of the old places, but just from memory, these come to mind:
• Penn’s Bar and Grill. Located just across from the historic Highland County Courthouse, Jim and Mary Penn had the best steak sandwiches and French fries in town. As I recall, when you walked in through the front door, there was a bar to your right and a row of high-back, wooden booths to your left. The kitchen was in the back, and if you looked closely, you could watch them cook your food. There was a storage cellar below, the steps to which were uncovered last year during a sidewalk resurfacing project.
• The R&R – Maybe 100 yards diagonally across from Penn’s was the Robinsons’ bar and grill. Great burgers. Great chili and bean soup. It always helped to know the owners, too. As a kid, I can’t recall ever being charged a dime for a bowl of chili!
• Scotty’s – On South High Street, across the street and just a few doors south of The Highland County Press, was another local uptown saloon and restaurant. My dad and I liked their bean soup, and if you were real lucky, a chunk of cornbread before they ran out.
• Miss Jon’s – For many years, the late Jon Morgan owned and operated the Main Street restaurant also known as Prime Cut, after Orville and Vickie Reffitt took over the business. My wife and I celebrated New Year’s Eve with Miss Jon in the mid-1980s and had a wonderful evening. She was famous for her St. Patrick’s Day Mulligan Stew and green beer. Great lunch specials and the best frog legs in town.
• White’s Bar and Grill – Located where the Hillsboro city administrative offices are now on North High Street, White’s had the distinction of being the place where country music singer and Greenfield native Johnny Paycheck (Donald Lytle) shot another man after an argument (allegedly involving turtle soup) in 1985.
I don’t know if White’s had turtle soup on the menu, but you could get a good cheeseburger with pickle and onion and a Coke back in the ’70s for less than $2. (I was not supposed to go there after lunch time, but I was never very good at following instructions.)
One thing all of these local uptown establishments had in common was that the owner(s) or members of their family were always “in the store.”
Today, Highland County continues to be home to many locally owned businesses, including this newspaper.
The old saying “When the owner’s in the store, you care a lot more” really does ring true for America’s small business owners. (Most locally owned businesses do not mandate multiple unpaid furlough days to end one year and begin the next, either, although it seems to be yet another dismal sign of the current economic trends.)
As many of our locally owned businesses are planning their respective advertising and marketing budgets for 2012, we have been asked – as is customary this time of year – about The Highland County Press advertising contracts and commission rates.
As always, we are happy to provide the information. In fact, it’s pretty easy to do business with your only locally owned and operated newspaper – where all business is conducted on the honor system.
• We do not require advertising contracts. In fact, the only time we provide an advertising contract is at the request of the advertiser. Simply put, your word is good enough for us.
• We do not conduct business on a commission-driven basis. We don’t scramble to sell “end-of-the-month” gimmicks in order to satisfy a corporate budget.
• We have not increased rates in 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012.
The dedicated staff of The Highland County Press has a strong commitment to providing quality, service and a fair price.
Like those local businesses you see in our pages each and every week, we trust you and we hope, in turn, that we continue to earn your trust.
Our readers and advertisers have been incredibly supportive, and we appreciate it immensely. However, we will not rest on our past laurels.
It’s our responsibility to earn your continued support in 2012 by building on a very good community newspaper and maintaining a lively and informative local website.
With your continued support, we’ll do our best to live up to these standards and expectations. Thanks for reading, and have a Happy 2012.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press, Highland County’s only locally owned and operated newspaper.[[In-content Ad]]
On New Year’s Eve shortly before the ball dropped in Times Square, I offered on Highland County’s most-read website (ours!) one of those boilerplate columns about coffee shops and rumor mills.
Included was some speculation, discussed among a few local business owners and public officials, about Hillsboro’s new safety and service director. As we now know – with all due respect to administration advisers Laura Curliss and Sam Stratman – Richard Giroux has been named by Mayor Drew Hastings to succeed Ralph Holt in the SSD position. We sincerely wish the new administration(wherever they're from!) all the best in 2012 and beyond.
But back to my recent surprise from www.highlandcountypress.com readers.
The New Year’s Eve column referenced a few local restaurants – past and present – that included Blake’s in Greenfield; Magee’s (EAT), the Skyscraper and the Koffee Kup (Wanda’s) in Hillsboro; and the 125 Grill, McCoy’s and the White Star, all in Adams County.
For at least a few readers, the mention of these local establishments brought back some fond memories.
• One reader offered that “The Skyscraper was fine, but I enjoyed a cold beer at the Model Bakery, when I was 5 years old. My dad took me in there and we ordered sandwiches and soft drinks. The guy sitting to my left had a glass of cold beer. Looked pretty good. He sat the glass on the counter to read his paper (the Highland Press, I presume). I picked it up. Down the hatch! Not bad. Dad didn’t even see it. Could I have done that at the Skyscraper?”
No, my friend, unless it was BYOB, you probably couldn’t have had a cold beer at the Skyscraper (located in the 100 block of North High Street in uptown Hillsboro, across from the Colony Theater). Sorry, but I can’t recall the Model Bakery. Where was it located?
• Another reader said: “Thanks for the memories that you brought back talking about the Skyscraper Restaurant. It was the best place to get a roast beef, roast pork or meatloaf hotshot for 60 cents. Sometimes, that was hard to come up with! My dad would take my mom, brother and sister there on a Saturday and then we would visit with the merchants in the stores. I especially remember the Ludwicks and the people in Western Auto. I really needed some good memories to start the new year. Those were great days. Thank you so much.”
You’re most welcome. My dad used to take me to the Skyscraper, too. We always liked Al Staten’s Koffee Kup as well. I consumed my share of bacon & eggs at both places.
And then, there were the after-work spots for a burger and an RC Cola for me (and a burger and beer for the older men I was working with back in the early 1970s).
Forgive me if I miss some of the old places, but just from memory, these come to mind:
• Penn’s Bar and Grill. Located just across from the historic Highland County Courthouse, Jim and Mary Penn had the best steak sandwiches and French fries in town. As I recall, when you walked in through the front door, there was a bar to your right and a row of high-back, wooden booths to your left. The kitchen was in the back, and if you looked closely, you could watch them cook your food. There was a storage cellar below, the steps to which were uncovered last year during a sidewalk resurfacing project.
• The R&R – Maybe 100 yards diagonally across from Penn’s was the Robinsons’ bar and grill. Great burgers. Great chili and bean soup. It always helped to know the owners, too. As a kid, I can’t recall ever being charged a dime for a bowl of chili!
• Scotty’s – On South High Street, across the street and just a few doors south of The Highland County Press, was another local uptown saloon and restaurant. My dad and I liked their bean soup, and if you were real lucky, a chunk of cornbread before they ran out.
• Miss Jon’s – For many years, the late Jon Morgan owned and operated the Main Street restaurant also known as Prime Cut, after Orville and Vickie Reffitt took over the business. My wife and I celebrated New Year’s Eve with Miss Jon in the mid-1980s and had a wonderful evening. She was famous for her St. Patrick’s Day Mulligan Stew and green beer. Great lunch specials and the best frog legs in town.
• White’s Bar and Grill – Located where the Hillsboro city administrative offices are now on North High Street, White’s had the distinction of being the place where country music singer and Greenfield native Johnny Paycheck (Donald Lytle) shot another man after an argument (allegedly involving turtle soup) in 1985.
I don’t know if White’s had turtle soup on the menu, but you could get a good cheeseburger with pickle and onion and a Coke back in the ’70s for less than $2. (I was not supposed to go there after lunch time, but I was never very good at following instructions.)
One thing all of these local uptown establishments had in common was that the owner(s) or members of their family were always “in the store.”
Today, Highland County continues to be home to many locally owned businesses, including this newspaper.
The old saying “When the owner’s in the store, you care a lot more” really does ring true for America’s small business owners. (Most locally owned businesses do not mandate multiple unpaid furlough days to end one year and begin the next, either, although it seems to be yet another dismal sign of the current economic trends.)
As many of our locally owned businesses are planning their respective advertising and marketing budgets for 2012, we have been asked – as is customary this time of year – about The Highland County Press advertising contracts and commission rates.
As always, we are happy to provide the information. In fact, it’s pretty easy to do business with your only locally owned and operated newspaper – where all business is conducted on the honor system.
• We do not require advertising contracts. In fact, the only time we provide an advertising contract is at the request of the advertiser. Simply put, your word is good enough for us.
• We do not conduct business on a commission-driven basis. We don’t scramble to sell “end-of-the-month” gimmicks in order to satisfy a corporate budget.
• We have not increased rates in 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012.
The dedicated staff of The Highland County Press has a strong commitment to providing quality, service and a fair price.
Like those local businesses you see in our pages each and every week, we trust you and we hope, in turn, that we continue to earn your trust.
Our readers and advertisers have been incredibly supportive, and we appreciate it immensely. However, we will not rest on our past laurels.
It’s our responsibility to earn your continued support in 2012 by building on a very good community newspaper and maintaining a lively and informative local website.
With your continued support, we’ll do our best to live up to these standards and expectations. Thanks for reading, and have a Happy 2012.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press, Highland County’s only locally owned and operated newspaper.[[In-content Ad]]